


If the Clouds Were Singing a Song (I'd Sing Along)

by alcoholandregret



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Childhood Friends, M/M, fluff as fluffy as the clouds dylan loves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 13:12:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18032378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alcoholandregret/pseuds/alcoholandregret
Summary: It’s funny, looking back on things. With Mikey, there are a million stories to tell, and a lot of promises to keep (anda lotof germs shared in the process), and Dylan couldn’t pick the fondest one if he tried. He won’t try, not just because there’s no point, but because of what happens when he does.Today, though, he thinks he’ll let himself remember, let himself sift through memory after memory and just… let it linger.(or, the story of a boy who loves clouds so much he went and found his own)





	If the Clouds Were Singing a Song (I'd Sing Along)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hannah_baker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannah_baker/gifts).



> title from [Do You Know What I'm Seeing? by Panic! at the Disco](https://open.spotify.com/track/1ac22sFSlj3iaQV2qAsFkK?si=TatxEz3KQwGtm2l5EW8SZQ)
> 
> for the lovely hannah_baker, who I hope forgives my dumb ass for posting this a little late :)

Clouds. They’re fascinating, Dylan thinks. He’s always thought about that, from staring up at the skies making shapes out of them with Rye when they’d tired themselves out playing in the snow to learning what different kinds there are in kindergarten; he can still hear Ms. G asking them “are they  _ big _ puffy cumulus or looooooow grey stratus or wispy cirrus way up high?” first thing in the morning as they all lined up and stared out the windows for a better look. He can still clearly feel the boy right next to him brushing against his shoulder as he holds onto the windowsill so he can bounce up and down. He loves clouds too, Dylan knows as he answers the question every day like it’s the greatest joy in the world to announce the current cloud coverage. 

He never talked to that boy, really, just kind of smiled at him, glad there was someone else who loved those pretty things in the sky, and the boy never really saw him do this, too eager to show off his knowledge. He never talked to that boy, really, until one day a couple of weeks into the school year.

The thing is, he had been asking Rye to teach him the stuff he’d been learning in his science class because they were learning about clouds, and there are way more than just the three kinds he’d learned about, and that was the coolest thing in the world. Ryan didn’t like clouds - still doesn’t really care about what kind they are, only whether or not they mean snow or rain - but he taught him anyway, because he said it’d help him remember them for the test.

Now, at age five and a half, he can’t really say  _ cirrocumulus _ very well, but that doesn’t stop him from proudly informing Ms. G that those clouds aren’t  _ just _ cumulus, they’re up  _ real _ high and that means they’re  _ cirrocumulus _ clouds before the boy could even open his mouth. 

“No they’re not!” he’d argued, turning to Dylan, “They’re too big! They’re  _ altocumulus!” _

Mostly, Dylan hated that he could say that so clearly. But alto is easier than cirro, so  _ there. _

“There are too many for that!”

“Matt. Dylan.” Ms. G says slowly, “can you come here for a second?”

Dylan and  _ Matt, _ apparently, stare at each other with their best  _ this isn’t over  _ faces which, in retrospect, Dylan can be pretty sure were just that hilarious scrunched up mess that little kids make to let you know they’re angry or determined; and they cross their arms and stomp over to their teacher, not wanting the “let’s get along!” speech they’re probably gonna get. He will  _ not _ get along with this big meanie who thinks he knows everything, thank you very much.

“There’s no need to argue, boys,” she states once they’re stood in front of her. Dylan opens his mouth to protest because there  _ absolutely _ is, but she interrupts before he can make a sound. “I think it’s a great thing that you both know so much about clouds! More than me, even. I’d like it if you both told me what your clouds are.”

Naturally, they both start at the same time, but they also stop at the same time when she crosses her arms.

“We know better than that, don’t we?” she says, and they both nod.

“You can go first,” Dylan mumbles, mostly because Matt is  _ wrong, _ and he wants to show Ms. G he’s smarter  _ and _ more polite.

“Altocumulus clouds are the puffy ones that make fun shapes because they’re closer together ‘n higher up,” Matt grins, rocking back on his heels. “That’s what the ones are outside! ‘Cause they’re not real tiny  _ or _ real big.”

“That’s very interesting,” their teacher smiles, and Matt smiles back at her. Dylan  _ would _ be angry about that, he thinks, but he’s also smiling real big because now it’s  _ his _ turn and  _ he _ gets to talk about clouds. “Thank you, Matt.”

“Serio- no, cereal, no,” he pauses to take a deep breath. He’s talking too fast again and he can’t get the words out right. “Cirrocumulus are fish clouds! They’re real small and look like puffy blankies in the sky like my gram’s quilt!”

“Fish clouds, huh?” she laughs, “that’s very nice. I like those clouds too. Thank you both for teaching me something new. Now, what should we do?”

“Find out who’s right?” Dylan guesses, and she shakes her head no.

“Find out who’s wrong?” Matt guesses slowly, and she shakes her head again.

“Apologise for yelling at each other. That’s not how we make friends, is it?”

“No,” they mumble.

Dylan doesn’t  _ want _ to be his friend at all.

“So what do we say?”

“Sorry…”

“For?”

“Yellin’,” Dylan says at the same time Matt says “fightin’.”

“Thank you, boys. I think you two could be good friends, don’t you?”

They both nod, reluctant.

“That’s great,” she smiles and stands, and Dylan and Matt make their way to the carpet with the rest of the class, sitting side by side.

If you asked twenty-one year old Dylan, he’d say it’s because he was willing to give Matt a shot at being friends - he did like him up to that point, after all. If you asked five and a half year old Dylan, he would pout and complain that there were only two squares left to sit in.

So who knows, really,  _ why _ he asked “why do  _ you _ know clouds?” Maybe it was to make friends, or maybe it was challenging, a chance to brag like ‘well  _ my _ big brother teaches me, and he knows more than you, so  _ there.’ _ Actually, it was most definitely that second part. Regardless, it doesn’t matter, because that  _ brat _ came out of left field with his response.

Sitting up straighter as though he has authority on the subject, he proudly states, “my las’ name is McLeod. Mih  _ cloud.  _ So  _ I _ know clouds.”

“No,” Dylan crosses his arms, annoyed. “It’s Mick  _ Loud, _ so you’re jus’  _ loud.” _

Long story short, Dylan loves clouds, and he gets off on the wrong foot with the McLeod family. Though, as a kindergartener he doesn’t really grasp the idea of bad first impressions, instead deciding that if Matt Mick Loud is the worst, then he’s just the worst, and he hates him, and he’ll always hate him.

Rye says hate is a strong word. Dylan tells him that’s a good thing, because he  _ really _ hates Matt. He’s dumb and mean and  _ loud _ and he’s  _ always _ gonna hate him.

-

“There’s a family down the street with boys your age,” his mom tells them as she helps Matty out of his car seat. “They should be here soon, I think.”

“ _ Matty’s _ age, momma?” Dylan asks, bouncing up and down on his toes, eager to get to the swingset. “I don’t wanna play with  _ babies.” _

“No, Dylan,” she shakes her head, “they’re not babies.”

Matty toddles to Ryan, tugging on his shirt, “up! Up!”

“You’re too big,” their brother laughs, struggling to pick him up anyway. He’s probably just going to want to be put down the moment they get to the grass, too, so it’s not like it  _ really _ matters. 

Really, Dylan does not care at all about anything that isn’t the boy that’s sitting on  _ his _ swing, so the moment they’re out of the parking lot and his mother lets go of his hand, he runs over there - only falling twice, both times in the grass and not on the mulch, which is a bonus. He can hear Matty laughing, then falling, then laughing again as he tries to keep up behind him, and normally he’d turn around and watch to, like, cheer him on, but of  _ course,  _ not only is there a boy on  _ his swing, _ it’s Matt Mick Loud.

“That’s  _ mine,” _ he says, balling up his fists and stomping on the ground.

“It doesn’t say Dylan on it,” Matt wiggles his feet to get the swing to slow down. “‘Shoulda wrote your name on it.”

“I-”

He  _ was _ going to inform Matt that he would but he doesn’t have a pencil so he couldn’t, but he’s interrupted by being completely knocked over and onto the ground by a mess of laughing limbs that definitely aren’t Matty  _ or _ Rye.

“Hi!” the strange boy chirps, still laughing as he rolls off of Dylan and props his chin up on his hands. “Are you Matty’s friend?”

“I’m Matty’s brother,” he squints.

“No?” he tilts his head.  _ “I’m  _ Matty’s brother.”

“Nuh uh.”

“Uh huh.”

“Rye,” he calls out, sitting up, wanting backup here.

The boy’s eyes go wide. “You know Ry too?”

“Duh,” Dylan rolls his eyes. Who does this kid think he is?

“Mikey,” Matt says, and the boy - Mikey, then - rolls over to look at him. “Momma’s comin’.”

Mikey looks at Matt, then at Dylan, then at a woman walking over carrying a baby in a little Spiderman coat with a matching beanie, then at Dylan again, and he scrambles to get up quickly and run off. He doesn’t make it that far, stopping in a dramatic pose when the woman calls out  _ “Michael Robert,” _ which means he’s  _ definitely _ in big trouble for something. Two names! At least it wasn’t three, or else maybe he wouldn’t get a snack later. Three names is never a good thing.

“Come here,” she says once she makes her way to the swings and offers her free hand to help Dylan up. He takes it, just because it’s the nice thing to do, even though he didn’t really mind being on the ground. The ground is where the bugs are, and bugs are really funny. Except for spiders, but that’s just ‘cause they bite. If they didn’t bite, they wouldn’t be that scary.

“What’d you say?” she asks, smiling at him.

“Nothing?”

Matt laughs and Dylan sticks his tongue out at him.

Mikey has his head down by the time he shuffles slowly over to his mom, half hiding behind Dylan, who still does not know what’s going on. A glance over at where his family  _ was _ when he ran over here explains why he hasn’t gotten that backup yet: Rye is taking his time walking here, hands in his pockets while their mom keeps chasing after a loudly giggling Matty.

“What have I told you about knocking people over?”

“‘S not how you’re s’posed ta say hi to ‘em,” he mumbles, kicking at the mulch without looking up. “‘S not nice. ‘N I could hurt ‘em.”

“What about mumbling?”

He looks up, then, his bottom lip sticking out. “Sorry, momma.”

“You shouldn’t be apologising to me,” she says softly, and Dylan is getting a little antsy just standing here, and Matt Mick Loud is still on his swing, and Rye  _ still _ didn’t come to the rescue. This is the worst time he’s  _ ever _ had at the park and he  _ just _ got here.

“‘M sorry Matty’s friend,” Mikey turns his pout to him.

Ignoring the fact that he doesn’t seem to grasp that he’s Matty’s  _ brother, _ he just shrugs one shoulder. “It’s okay.”

“Really?” Mikey grins immediately, and when Dylan nods, he almost knocks him over again, this time with a hug. His mother can barely be heard sighing over the laughter that’s ringing in Dylan’s ears. “Awesome!”

“What’s up Dyls?” Rye asks, finally appearing as Mikey detaches himself from him - well, mostly; he’s still holding his hand. Dylan doesn’t really care.

Kids aren’t great at whispering. They think they are, but they aren’t, which is probably why Ryan rolls his eyes when Dylan points with his free hand and loudly whispers, “tha’s Matt Mick Loud. Tell ‘im he’s on my swing.”

“It’s not your swing, beans. You know that.”

“Ryan,” he pouts. His big brother should be on his side, not Mean Matt’s.  _ “Please.” _

“Why don’t we take turns?” Mikey’s mom chips in. “Matty, bud, why don’t you let him have a turn?”

“No!” Mikey complains, tugging on Dylan’s hand. “I wanna play with him.”

The baby Mikey’s mom is holding shrieks suddenly, reaching out with chubby little arms. He makes grabby hands as he babbles “map! Map! Map!”

They all turn to see what he’s yelling about, and it turns out it’s Dylan’s mom, holding Matty, who’s doing the exact same thing, except he’s just laughing still rather than saying anything back. Both boys get put down and they waddle over to each other, hugging and giggling until they tumble over and Ryan takes it upon himself to do damage control, but neither of them are crying, so it’s fine.

“Hey, Judi. You look like you’re having fun.”

Mikey’s mom shakes her head and laughs, “so much fun.”

Well, Dylan still isn’t. He still wants to swing. Well, not really. Like, okay, he loves the swing and he wants to, but mostly he just wants Matt to  _ not _ be on the swing. It’s the principle of the matter, here. That’s his, okay, not that dumb Mick Loud’s.

“Momma,” he pouts up at her, lip quivering. Actually, you know what, this has all been a lot, and he’s just really  _ sad _ and this is awful terrible completely horrible and-

It’s not his fault he bursts into tears, is all.

She crouches down and wipes the tears off his face. “What’s wrong, Dyls?”

_ Loud Matt thinks he knows everything and he’s on my swing and I just want to sit on my swing and have fun and his momma said I could but Mikey said no and I don’t wanna play with Mikey I wanna sit on the swing and you weren’t listening to me and Rye wasn’t listening to me and I wanna sit on the swing and I wanna go home and everything is bad all the time it’s all bad and my knee hurts ‘cause Mikey knocked me over ‘n I got an ouchie I think but I jus’ wanna sit on the swing take me home! _

Well, he tried to say something like that. It mostly came out as wails, sobs, and sniffles. It probably got the point across. Or, well,  _ a  _ point across - he’s having a complete meltdown. It’s been like a whole four days since his last one, so there’s a lot pent up, but when it gets right down to it, he just hates Matt.

“Peas don’ cry,” Mikey tugs on his hand, his own lip trembling like he’s going to cry too. “Peas?”

_ “Please, _ Mikey,” Matt corrects.

He huffs and speaks slower this time, “please.”

Dylan wipes his eyes and tries to stop, but it’s hard. “Tryin’.”

“Race to th’slide?” Mikey looks hopeful and starts bouncing up and down on his toes.

“O-” the other boy takes off “-kay,” he finishes before chasing after him. They run into the slide at the same time, tumbling to the ground once again.

“I win!” Mikey declares, throwing his arms up.

“You cheated!”

“Nuh uh.”

“Yeah huh.”

“Di’ not.”

“Did too.”

“Hey!” Mikey suddenly tugs on Dylan’s sleeve and points up at the sky. “Lookie! Tha’ cloud’s a puppy.”

“That one’s a flower,” he smiles and points, forgetting about their race and Mikey cheating.

They lay down and keep making shapes in the clouds until their moms come to get them, and Dylan’s horrible day turned around so easily thanks to friendship that comes in the shape of an excited boy whose last name is Mih Cloud. He’s  _ definitely _ better than that Mick Loud.

-

It’s not until a couple years later, after they’d both gotten a better grasp on grammar and pretty much everything else, that they lay in the grass at one of Matty and Ry’s soccer games to stare up at the clouds and Dylan feels a little flip in his stomach he can’t describe, but he  _ does _ tell his mom he might be getting sick later. They’re side by side and finding shapes in the clouds and making up stories for each of them, absentmindedly tearing up the blades of grass between them to stack up on each other’s chests.

“Oh, a heart,” Dylan points out, adding another handful to his friend’s pile. “Uh, maybe that’s for-” he scans the sky for new shapes or ideas in the ones they’d already talked about, but Mikey steps in.

“Us,” he sits up with a smile, and Dylan frowns as he watches the grass fall into Mikey’s lap.

“Us?” 

He worked hard picking all that grass.

“Yup,” he pops the ‘p,’ “‘cause I love you.”

He smiles  _ real _ big at that, and his stomach feels a little funny. “Really?”

“Duh.”

There’s a loud cheer from the parents on the sideline, and when Mikey quickly turns around to see what happened, Dylan hops up and tackles him. They ignore their mothers telling them not to get their clothes too dirty while they wrestle in a graceless mess of limbs, the warnings dressed as requests drowned out by the screeching laughter of a pair of boys overflowing with energy.

When he finally gets tired and sprawls out on the grass, Mikey claims victory by sitting on Dylan’s stomach, and Dylan doesn’t even get annoyed - he’s just too happy. Happy because the game is ending, and that means Matty is going to have snacks, and that means  _ he’s _ going to get some because his brother is the best and always shares,  _ and _ they get to go home and he can play Pokemon,  _ and _ Mikey might be able to come over,  _ and,  _ well, because Mikey is his absolute best friend forever.

(They promised, once. A pinky promise and a spit swear and  _ cross your heart. _ They promised and promised because there’s no way they ever wouldn’t be best friends.)

-

“Mikey and I got married today,” Dylan proudly informs his mother as they bounce up to the car hand in hand.

“That so?” she laughs. “I didn’t even get you a wedding gift.”

Mikey bites his lip, and scrunches his face up, thinking about what he wants for a wedding gift. “Can we get ice cream?”

“I’ll have to ask your mother,” she tells him, and Dylan can tell he had hoped she’d forget that she was supposed to do that by the way he immediately pouts.

“A cookie, then?” he tries.

“I think we can get away with that.”

“Yes!” the pair cheers, high-fiving with the hands that aren’t linked together.

Matt walks over with Matty and Ry in tow, the youngest boys chatting happily about the wedding because Matt had missed it. He was playing soccer at recess, and the whole fiasco happened under the tree by the chalk area.

Dylan and Matt are on good terms, these days. Really, all it took was kindergarten graduation turning into an entire summer spent together and a bond between the six boys and their parents that doubled the size of his family. They haven’t been the Stromes and McLeods since then; they’ve been the StromesAndMcLeods. It’s the same thing but now Dylan has five brothers, which is kind of the coolest thing, he thinks. 

Half a school year of being mortal enemies over clouds is easily outweighed by nearly four of being honorary siblings, it turns out.

Mikey doesn’t count as a brother, though. Mikey’s always been different than Matt-not-Matty and Ry-with-no-e. He’s Dylan’s best friend ever - they  _ promised, _ remember? And they’re  _ married _ now, which is, like, probably the best way to promise to be someone’s best friend forever and ever until the end of time. That’s the entire point of it, as far as he knows.

“You better not be a Strome,” Matt teases, messing up Mikey’s hair as they all climb into the van. “I’d have to take away your brother status.”

“That’s mean,” Matty informs him before Dylan can think of something to say that’s a better comeback than  _ ‘well  _ you’re _ stupid’ _ or  _ ‘who asked you?’ _ “I like bein’ a Strome.”

“You’re a Matt,” he shrugs, helping him with his seatbelt. “It’s a get out of jail free card.”

“Dylan’s in  _ jail,” _ Ry laughs.

“Then  _ I’m _ in jail,” Mikey grabs Dylan’s hand, looking determined.

Matt shakes his head and wipes away a pretend tear. “We lost him.”

The moment the car starts, Ryan and Matty start singing their multiplication table songs, and by the time they pull into the McLeod’s driveway a few short minutes later, the other three boys had joined in - mostly because they knew the songs and they couldn’t help it, not because they’re really enthusiastic about counting by twos and fives.

Mikey kisses Dylan’s hand before he gets out of the car and they agree to meet at the stop sign between their houses at six like they always do so they can ride their bikes to the park. They  _ could _ walk, but Mikey’s bike has a basket on it, and that means they can bring back the cool stuff - usually neat rocks and pieces of metal or plastic they don’t know the purpose of - and show it off to their parents.

He’s sad that he has to go home and do homework and  _ not _ spend more time with Mikey, but  _ apparently _ rules are rules, regardless of whether or not it’s your wedding day. It’s not  _ all _ bad, though, because he’s really hungry and dinner is soon  _ and _ he’s always asked what he did at school that day during dinner, so he’ll get to tell them  _ all _ about his Very Big Day. And there’s  _ a lot _ to tell.

Well, not really, but any excited 10 year old can take a five-minute story and stretch it into hours if they want to. There’s a lot of details he has to cover, like the bouquet of white dandelions that they made a wish on after a friend recited what small, incorrect bits of wedding vows she could remember from some movie she saw once. Matty and Ry had insisted on being part of it, so they pulled up a bunch of grass and threw it at them. He still doesn’t know what the rice is all about, but Mikey insisted that’s a thing people do. It kept their little brothers happy, anyway.

The one part he has no problem glossing over, however, was what happens at the  _ end _ of those vows. Y’know, the whole ‘you may now kiss the bride’ ordeal. Sara stumbled through that one, looking very confused as she tried to correct herself, the statement ending up sounding more like “you may now-” she whispers “kiss” like it’s scandalous, which maybe it is for fourth and fifth graders “-the br- bri...oy. The boy.”

It was, maybe, an oversight on their parts when the snowball started rolling, and it got so big so quickly - recess is only so long, after all - that the thought never occurred to either of them that that’s something that happens at weddings. Neither of them move, just staring at each other like deer in headlights until Sara, bored of this, rolls her eyes. 

“Are you guys gonna get married or not?”

Mikey shrugs, then Dylan shrugs, and they quickly lean in and peck - quite literally, it actually hurt a little - each other’s mouths.

He’s probably going to think about it for a while, ‘cause that was his  _ first kiss. _ Kinda. Technically. At least, like, they’re married, so it makes sense.

It doesn't take very long for their parents to actually explain that they’re not really married, ‘cause they’re not old enough. They both think it’s stupid that their playground marriage doesn’t actually count.

(They promise they’ll get married when they’re older. A pinky promise and a spit swear and  _ cross your heart. _ They promised and promised because there’s no reason they shouldn’t.)

-

It’s funny, looking back on these things now. With Mikey, there are a million stories to tell, and a lot of promises to keep (and  _ a lot _ of germs shared in the process), and Dylan couldn’t pick the fondest one if he tried. He won’t try, not just because there’s no point, but because of what happens when he does.

Today, though, he thinks he’ll let himself remember, let himself sift through memory after memory and just… let it linger.

There’s nothing special about the day, not really, but it’s a quiet summer day and the grass is soft under him as he lays back and watches the clouds slowly make their way across the sky, slightly changing shape as they go. There’s something to be learned from them, maybe. What that is, he has no idea. He’s not, like, a philosopher or poet or whatever.

He just loves the clouds, and he loves a Mih Cloud.

In that way, it’s not too hard to feel like he knows what it feels like to be those clouds in the sky, moving slowly through life - a small boy loves clouds and when he finds one he can hold onto himself, he loves that one too. The boy looks different now, much taller, much older, and his cloud changed just as much, but he still holds on, still loves him.

They aren’t the only things that have changed shape. The way he holds his cloud - far more cautious, far less often - has too.

The way he loves his cloud - far more cautious, far too often - has too.

Dylan is still the same Dylan. The kindergartener proudly showing off his newfound knowledge stares up at the sky and smiles at the  _ big _ puffy cumulus against a blue summer sky. The eight year old with his best friend sitting on his stomach feels the weight of that same friend sitting on his chest even though he’s nowhere in sight. The fifth-grader holding a fistful of dandelions under a tree at recess feels the grass tickle his arms as the slightly overgrown blades dance in the wind.

The kindergartener following a cloud in the shape of a boy a little younger than himself never stops following close behind him. The eight year old’s stomach feels funny when the boy he’d promised forever to tells him he loves him, and the few butterflies he’d swallowed that day turns into so many he gets sick when they flutter their soft wings - and they do that too often. The fifth-grader announcing to the world that the cloud was well and truly his-

Well.

He wants nothing more than to do that again.

It isn’t exactly a realisation, per se, when tears prick at the corners of Dylan’s eyes when that thought is coupled with spotting a heart in the sky just like the one he’d seen at a soccer game thirteen years ago. He’s known his feelings for Mikey aren’t the way friends feel about friends since they were in middle school and everything started changing for the both of them. It’s not a foreign concept to him, loving Michael McLeod, but it’s-

“Hey, loser.”

If Dylan  _ wasn’t  _ already laying down, he definitely would have fallen over, but he  _ is _ laying down and what he  _ did _ do was flinch like he was jumping out of his skin. Honestly, in this case, it almost feels like he was jumping back  _ into _ his skin - Mikey’s face suddenly appearing in his line of vision like a gravitational pull dragging him back down from where he was floating with the clouds.

“Jeez, jumpy.” Mikey smiles softly at him before sitting at his side. “What are you thinking about? Seems intense.”

“Right now? I’m thinking about how you’re definitely Mick Loud,” he jokes, rolling his eyes in an attempt to collect himself and seem less… affected.

“Been a while since I heard that.” The way he said that makes Dylan think it should be accompanied with a laugh or some other sign of amusement, but instead Mikey bites his lip and stares up at the sky without continuing. 

He just watches, staring at his jawline and his eyelashes and-

He shuts his eyes.

“Can I promise you something?” he asks without opening them back up, wanting to pretend he’s just talking to the sky, to a cloud that breathes with the wind and not the one that breathes air Dylan would like to breathe for himself.

“I don’t know why I’d say no to that,” Mikey laughs lightly. “I don’t think you have to ask.”

“Remember the one we made when we were younger?”

“You’re gonna have to be more specific than that, Dyls.”

The scene plays out clearly in his head; a night spent under the stars with Mikey, using a constellation map to trace the ones in the sky with their fingers like cosmic connect the dots, learning for the first time how easy it is to be vulnerable at such a late hour. They’re just past thirteen and fourteen, and the chilly summer night slowly brings them closer and closer together like magnets that are unsure of themselves until they’re finally pressed together, warm and for the first time feeling like that slight pull means something.

That last part might have just been Dylan, though. He never asked.

Instead, he nodded, pinky promised, shook on it (spit swears are, turns out, really gross),  _ cross your heart,  _ when Mikey smiled at him and held up a hand to swear that he’d never change and Dylan said he’d do the same.

They talked about a lot of things, what they were he couldn’t tell you if he tried, but he remembers Mikey’s voice breaking a little when he talked about how he worried that - even if they didn’t change -  _ something _ would.

_ “I love you Dyls.” _

_ “I love you too.” _

_ “What if we don’t one day?” _

_ “That’s not gonna happen. Forever, remember?” _

_ “Yeah, but. What if it isn’t the same? What if it changes?” _

_ “It won’t-” _

_ “It could!” _

“I promise,” he raises one hand, and it feels as heavy as it did when he said it that night, “that I’ll tell you if  _ something-” _

“Changes,” Mikey finishes, and Dylan finally opens his eyes to meet his friend’s. They look… scared, almost.

“Pinky promise-”

“Shake-”

They trail off, saying “cross your heart” in unison, drawing the little ‘x’ on their chests.

“What about it?”

Dylan bites his lip harder than he probably should, and he looks back up at the sky so he doesn’t have to look at his friend any longer.

“I uh. I promise I’ll never lie to you about anything important ever again.”

_ “Cross your heart,” and they cross out their hearts, and Mikey holds Dylan’s hand. _

_ “I don’t think we’re gonna need to keep that one,” he says, as though the promise alone made him believe what Dylan had already told him. “I’m never gonna let that happen, ‘cause I love you and we’re best friends, and I don’t ever want that to change.” _

_ “Best friends,” he smiles and nods. Dylan looks at Mikey, at those blue eyes that look grey in the pale light of the moon and the reflection of the stars he could swear they hold, and he wants more than anything to kiss him with the lips that form the words “-I don’t want that to change either, ‘cause I love you and I don’t want anything else.” _

Maybe it wouldn’t have been a lie if he’d just said  _ anyone _ instead of anything. 

Maybe it wouldn’t have been a lie if-

There wasn’t any getting around it, not really - not when the lie began the moment he held his hand up and said  _ I promise. _

Really, that was a promise that was broken before it had been spoken - something had already changed, and Dylan didn’t have any intent on telling him about it. Not until now.

He doesn’t even know why; maybe it’s just Mikey rolling in with the clouds at the right time. Or wrong time. Depending.

“What?”

Turning to look at him instead of the sky again confirms that he looks as heartbroken as that single syllable sounded. 

Yeah, he definitely did not word that in the best way.

“Uh, can I try that again?”

“No, Dyl. What the fuck did that mean?”

“I love clouds, right?”

“Dude this isn’t-”

“You’re the cloud I love the most.”

“What does that have to do with  _ lying  _ to me?”

Mikey looks a little hurt and a lot confused, and Dylan has no fucking idea what he’s saying at all, pretty sure that when he snapped back into his body his brain had actually stayed up in the clouds, so he’s on his own here. Suffice to say, that isn’t a good thing.

“Y’know how when you testify in court-”

“Jesus Christ.”

“-and when you’re up there giving a testimony you, like, leave out really important parts of what happened?”

“No.”

“Well if you do that-” he’s talking even faster than normal now, and he doesn’t know when he sat up, but he’s sitting now and his hands are flying all over the place as though it’s helping to portray what he means “-and you get caught you can actually go to jail for perjury even though you didn’t  _ lie,  _ really-”

Mikey grabs Dylan’s jaw to get him to stop, and once he does, slowly lowers his hand. “I really didn’t need a lesson in fucking law, so if you could cut to the chase, that would be  _ really great.” _

He doesn’t want to look at him when he says this, doesn’t want to see whatever the reaction ends up being. There’s no real way to test the waters here; there’s only diving in headfirst, and Dylan realises that that’s exactly how their entire friendship started.

Headfirst.

“I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true-”

“You  _ just _ said-”

“I just didn’t say  _ everything _ that  _ was.” _ Mikey opens his mouth to interrupt again and Dylan holds up one finger before continuing. “Don’t yell at me, I’m getting there. I said I loved you, and I did- I  _ do.” _

“But?”

This is the hard part, and those butterflies are restless, and Dylan wants to swallow his own tongue instead of using it to say, “I didn’t say how.”

Mikey tilts his head just slightly, and it reminds Dylan of Oscar when he was a puppy and every new sound was confusing to him. “How?”

“I don’t know how to word it,” he says honestly, picking at the grass at his side. “At the time I’d call it a crush, I guess-” he shrugs with one shoulder in an attempt to gloss over it “-but it’s not that anymore.”

Any traces of hurt have completely faded away by now, replaced by a light pink dusting his friend’s cheeks. It reminds him of the pale pink edges clouds have just before the sun starts to rise, but it’s more beautiful on Mikey. God.

“You had a crush on me?”

“I change my mind,” he scrunches up his face. “I never want to hear you say those words again.”

“Hmm,” Mikey props his elbows up on his knees and puts his chin in his hands. “Fine. So… you like,  _ like liked _ me?”

Dylan turns bright red and punches him in the shoulder, “shut the fuck  _ up, _ oh my god.”

He laughs and the corner of his lip turns up ever so slightly, and that’s never a good sign. Despite how it may appear to anyone else, though, he  _ does _ know that Mikey isn’t being an ass about this. He is, in the same way the McLeods tend to be, obviously - if it were any other way,  _ that _ would be the cause for concern. Dylan knows Mikey, like, better than he knows anyone else, so there are a few things he knows about what is happening right now:

One: the chirping is only in good fun (and he kind of deserves it because saying the word “crush” to another adult to say you had feelings for them feels really fucking weird, to say the least).

Two: the next words out of his friend’s mouth are almost definitely going to be-

“Make me.”

Yeah.

“Absolutely not,” he folds his arms. “There is no fucking way I am going to let that work for you.”

He blinks innocently, tilting his head ever so slightly to try to look more endearing - and of course it fucking does. “Let what work?”

“I hate you. The most.”

“Nah, you love me.”

“Really?” And, you know what, two can play the  _ make me _ game, so, “prove it.”

“If  _ I’m _ not allowed to do that, then neither are you, asshole.”

“Well, it seems we’re at an impasse.”

Mikey takes his phone out of his pocket and looks back up after a moment spent scrolling through something, unable to hide the laughter in his voice when he asks, “are you going to kiss me or do I have to lie to my diary?”

Honestly, he’s torn between not wanting to humour that stupid line and getting  _ really _ impatient. Like, he’s wanted this for years, and here they are, so close to finally getting somewhere, and they’re just turning it into a competition to see who concedes to the other’s stupid fucking line.

Dumb competitions are just part of being friends with Mikey, and Dylan has always played along, always been determined to win whatever it was, but this time he’s okay with not putting up a real fight.

“I wouldn’t want you to have to lie to your diary,” he says, tapping his chin like he’s heavily weighing his options. “I guess I will, then.”

“Thank god,” Mikey laughs, sounding a little giddy, and it makes his heart skip a beat. “This website has worse ideas than you.”

He’s okay with shutting him up by kissing him now, turns out.

When he’d thought about this moment, he’d never really imagined it like this, but when it gets down to it? He really probably should have. It’s too fitting for them; perfect, better than he could have dreamt, even. Mikey’s hand cupping his face is as soft as the grass under his own, the light breeze offers a chill to his skin that matches the one going down his spine, the air is as warm and sweet as the lips against his own, and it’s only natural that kissing Mikey is a warm summer day.

He thought there would be some hesitation, or that it would be slow going at first - testing the waters or finding proper footing - but there was none of that.

There wasn’t a need for it, he knows now.

They know each other as though they’re merely extensions of their own selves; there’s no need for a GPS when you’re travelling roads you’ve known your whole life. Dylan doesn’t need a map to get home or find the comfort of it in Mikey.

Just as they entered the friendship, they enter something new.

Headfirst.

The quiet breaths they share when he finally pulls back slightly and rests his forehead against Mikey’s are all he needs to confirm the train of thought that was derailed what feels like just seconds and also hours ago:

It’s not a foreign concept to him, loving Michael McLeod, but it’s new- this feeling that it maybe isn’t enough to say he  _ loves _ him, that it maybe should have another word in there, that maybe being in love with Michael McLeod isn’t too foreign a concept either. He doesn’t know when the shift was, couldn’t pinpoint it on a timeline of their lives if he tried, but he’s sure that that seamlessness is why he’d never thought about  _ why _ “I love you” felt like a lie sometimes, like it wasn’t enough, like he was lying by omission and committing perjury.

“Remember when we got married?” he says, effectively ruining the moment.

Mikey laughs so hard he falls onto his back and throws his arms out to the side with a sigh when he finally calms down enough to try to speak. “How could I forget my own wedding day? What kind of husband do you think I am?”

“The kind that takes eleven years to kiss me,” he teases, poking the small strip of skin that’s showing where the hem of Mikey’s shirt is blowing in the wind as it picks up a little. He wonders absently if it’s supposed to storm later.

“Well apparently you committed a crime in court not long after that, so how could you expect me to kiss you while you were in prison?”

“Oh my god,” he says it like he’s had an epiphany and he lays right next to Mikey, who immediately holds his hand. “After our wedding- Ryno was right.”

“What?”

“I  _ was _ in jail.”

It takes a few beats before Mikey understands what the hell that meant, and the moment he does, he laughs again, bringing Dylan’s hand to his chest, the back of it resting over his heart.

“I can’t believe he threw the grass at his own brother’s wedding when he knew he was marrying a  _ criminal. _ Who does that?”

“If I recall correctly,” Dylan turns his head to face him and smiles softly, “you said you were in jail too.”

“Shit,” he moves their hands back to the grass between them as he turns to face Dylan too, “you caught me.”

“I don’t think it counts as getting ‘caught’ if you confessed to it without even being asked. That’s basically turning yourself in.”

“I was already arrested, Dyl, we were past the getting turned in part.”

“Well then how would you have gotten caught?”

“You can get caught with shit in jail, dumbass.”

“What’d you get caught for, huh? Smuggling gummy bears? Too much sugar?”

“Too much love,” he shrugs with one shoulder. That’s unfair, that’s so fucking unfair, like, how  _ dare _ he take this stupid conversation and make it so cute so quickly. What the fuck? What the fuck. And, like, he’d make that complaint or at least kiss him again, because now he really wants to, but there was more to say, evidently. Mikey squeezes his hand and follows up with, “It’s the same reason you were there. I was worried in the first place ‘cause I thought I’d lose you if I told you how bad I wanted to do boyfriend stuff with you.”

“Do boyfriend stuff?” Dylan can’t help but laugh lightly at that. “Clouder, we’ve always done boyfriend stuff. It constantly drove me fucking insane.”

“Whatever,” Mikey rolls his eyes so dramatically he turns his entire head to look back up at the sky.

“You just didn’t wanna say you had a crush on me because you’d get a taste of your own fuckin’ medicine.”

“Maybe so.”

Dylan looks back up at the clouds and they fall silent. He doesn’t mind it and laying on the grass in his back yard hand in hand is the most natural thing in the world. He lays there, and he watches the clouds slowly roll through the sky, and it’s his sixth birthday and it’s too cold to be outside, but he and Mikey bundle up to play in the snow anyway, and they don’t get up after making snow angels, and they watch the grey clouds do the same march they always do. He lays there and he’s eight years old, and there’s a warm hand in his, and he has the taste of cheez-its on his tongue from the extra bag Matty got for him, and he tries to whistle along to the unstructured song that is the wind. He lays there and he’s ten and their hands are sticky from the promise to one day make a real promise of forever, and they watch birds fly through the sky, and they talk about what they would do if they could fly like that, and Mikey hugs him when he says he’d want to hug a cloud, and Dylan never forgets the ‘you already have a cloud to hug whenever you want’ that sings in his ears like the birds in the trees. He lays there and he’s fourteen and his heart is pounding, and he’s twenty-one and his heart is at ease, and he loves the clouds in the sky and the one by his side.

“Damn, show’s over, I guess.”

Matty’s voice from the back porch makes Dylan jump for the second time, this time actually sitting up. He doesn’t feel foolish for it, either, because Mikey does the same thing.

They turn to see what he’s talking about, and that reveals their younger brothers sat on the porch steps, a half-empty bowl of popcorn sat between them.

“How long have you two been there?” Mikey asks, and it’s not worth it to try to decode what the cocktail of feelings behind the question contains.

Ryan tosses another handful of popcorn into his mouth, “since Mikey got here.”

“What the fuck,” is all Dylan can manage to say. Because really. What the fuck.

“We were gonna watch a movie, so we were making popcorn-” Matty starts.

“-and then we saw Mikey hyping himself up to talk to you like he wanted to ask you to prom-” Ryan continues.

“I did not do that!”

“He did,” Matty assures with a nod. “I got it on video.”

“Send me that,” Dylan says, ignoring Mikey’s betrayed look.

Ryan carries on like he hadn’t been interrupted, “-but we decided this would be a lot more interesting than a movie, so we came out here instead.” 

“You two are gross,” Matty nods firmly to punctuate the statement like it’s a fact.

It is. He won’t argue with that.

“I can’t wait to throw grass at your actual wedding,” Ryan teases with that patented McLeod Smirk™ printed on his face. “How exciting.”

“I can’t wait to throw  _ rocks _ at yours,” Mikey mutters, and as cute as the pout on his face is, Dylan thinks he should help get rid of it.

He doesn’t know what’s sweeter- the lips soft as clouds, or how kissing them earns exaggerated groans of disgust out of their younger brothers.

**Author's Note:**

> can you believe dylan is the best boy who deserves love and to have the best birthday ever? wow. also I hope the experience of elementary school recess weddings is universal bc that shit was a Big Deal lmao
> 
> the influence of my brother and I loving clouds when we were little combined with my early childhood classes/the kindergarteners in the classroom I observe on fridays is very strong here tbh I love little kids they're adorable
> 
> catch me on [tumblr](http://www.sidnate.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/alcoholnregret)


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